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CLIENT CASE STUDY

Vodafone: High Performance in Finance with Oracle Planning and Forecasting Solution

Accenture teamed with Vodafone to transform its Finance and Enterprise Performance Management capabilities; deploying an integrated Oracle Hyperion system across 19 operating companies around the world.

Overview

Accenture helped Vodafone transform its Finance and Enterprise Performance Management framework using Oracle Hyperion technology during a three-year program called Vodafone Integrated Planning (VIP). From shaping Vodafone’s Enterprise Performance Management strategy, including key performance metrics, to ultimately implementing an Oracle Hyperion Planning solution that will serve all of Vodafone’s 19 operating companies, As part of the Vodafone team, Accenture helped deliver analytics-driven forecasting and financial planning solutions that are enabling Vodafone to navigate the increasingly competitive telecommunications market.

Vodafone Integrated Financial Planning (VIP) with Oracle

Accenture helped deliver analytics-driven forecasting and financial planning solutions that are enabling Vodafone to navigate the increasingly competitive telecommunications market.

Client Profile

Vodafone Group plc is a multinational telecommunications company headquartered in London, UK. It is the world's 2nd-largest mobile telecommunications company measured by both subscribers and revenues. Vodafone owns and operates networks in 27 countries and has partner networks in over 47 additional countries and more than 434 million subscribers as of March 31, 2014. The company employed an average of 93,000 people in 2014. In addition to its mobile solutions, Vodafone provides fixed broadband services to 9 million customers in 17 markets around the world.

Opportunity

Vodafone set ambitious goals to become an integrated digital service provider by acquiring companies in the cable and content space and further expanding its Fixed Line business. Meanwhile, the company needed to focus on shoring up its traditional mobile business against declining customer revenue and increasing service costs; market trends which were impacting the entire telecommunications industry. In 2012, Vodafone began a three-year transformational journey known as Vodafone Integrated Planning (VIP) with the objective of making analytics-driven planning and forecasting pivotal in shaping and sustaining its global business. Central to this program’s success was providing Finance stakeholders in Vodafone’s operating companies with greater resources and flexibility to respond to business scenarios and being able to forecast across multiple variables.

Solution

Accenture assessed Vodafone’s existing operating model and provided a strategy that addressed the key requirements in developing a new enterprise performance management program: agile performance management (efficient planning, reliable forecasting and agile reporting); financial value tracking (planning and execution) and flexible operations (integrated systems). Following the strategy, Accenture then designed and built a common template for financial planning and budgeting activities that was integrated in an Oracle Hyperion Planning solution. The VIP solution consisted of five distinctive enabling solutions designed to deliver deep analytical and forecasting assets to Vodafone. VIP’s featured solutions:

  1. Bottom-Up Driver Based Planning –for running budgeting and forecasting cycles.

  2. Customer Life-Cycle Forecasting–for planning customer base profitability through its life cycle.

  3. Enterprise Fixed Line Business Planning –for forecasting wireline B2B segment.

  4. Rolling Forecast –for generating monthly outlooks by trending data.

  5. “What if” simulation console – enabling scenario based planning.

Results

The success of the VIP program has helped Vodafone streamline and become more efficient, providing standardized financial planning tools, improved automation and driver based reporting capabilities which are enabling the company to make faster and more informed business decisions. Finance departments across operating companies are free to focus on higher value-add activities and better serve decision makers with insightful plans and analyses. Migration to the Oracle Exalytics platform has doubled the solution’s performance speeds in terms of transactions per minute and exponentially reduced errors within applications. In addition, the new solution reduces a variety of ongoing financial reporting costs and helps users to now focus their analysis on value-added planning activities.